The New York Times recently released an article called It’s Possible to Hack a Phone With Sound Waves, Researchers Show, which highlights CCC Council Member Kevin Fu’s work on embedded computer systems. Kevin and his team at the University of Michigan and collaborators at the University of South Carolina have found a vulnerability that allows them to take control of devices through the tiny accelerometers that are standard components in consumer products like smartphones, fitness monitors and even automobiles. Accelerometers, which measure acceleration, are used for navigating, determining the orientation of a tablet computer, and measuring distance traveled in devices such as Fitbits. The research team used precisely tuned acoustic […]

The following Great Innovative Idea is from Mohamed Sarwat, Assistant Professor in Computer Science and Engineering at Arizona State University. Sarwat presented his poster, GeoExpo-Interactive and Scalable Exploration of Big GeoSpatial Data, at the CCC Symposium on Computing Research, May 9-10, 2016. The Idea GIS software packages are useful tools to make sense of spatial data. Such data includes but is not limited to: weather maps, vegetation indices, and geological maps. In addition, technology allows hundreds of millions of users to frequently use their GPS-enabled devices to access their healthcare information and bank accounts, interact with friends, buy items online, search interesting places to visit on-the-go, ask for driving directions, and […]

The next WATCH talk, called Securing the Network Time Protocol is Thursday, March 16th, from 11 AM-12 PM EST. The presenter is Sharon Goldberg, an associate professor in the Computer Science Department at Boston University. Her research uses tools from theory (cryptography, game-theory, algorithms), and networking (measurement, modeling, and simulation) to solve practical problems in network security. She received her Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2009, her B.A.Sc. from the University of Toronto in 2003, has worked as a researcher at IBM, Cisco, and Microsoft, as an engineer at Bell Canada and Hydro One Networks, and has served on working groups of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Internet Engineering Task […]

The mission of Computing Research Association’s (CRA) Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is to catalyze the computing research community and enable the pursuit of innovative, high-impact research. CCC conducts activities that strengthen the research community, articulate compelling research visions, and align those visions with pressing national and global challenges. CCC communicates the importance of those visions to policymakers, government and industry stakeholders, the public, and the research community itself. In accordance with the mission, CCC is issuing a new call for proposals for workshops that will catalyze and enable innovative research at the frontiers of computing. From the solicitation: Successful activities will articulate new research visions, galvanize community interest in those visions, mobilize support for those visions from the […]

Greg Hager, former Computing Community Consortium (CCC) chair and Mandell Bellmore Professor of Computer Science at The Johns Hopkins University, contributed to this post. Last week, the CRA Board of Directors announced that Tom Kalil was selected as the 2017 recipient of the CRA Distinguished Service Award for “his long history of leading national initiatives that have had a transformational impact on the computing research community and as an exemplary spokesperson, advocate, and collaborator for the computing research community.” According to Greg Hager, former CCC chair, “Tom has a unique ability to envision and articulate the impact of major science and technology initiatives and, even more importantly, to find mechanisms to bring them […]

This month’s Data Science Roundtable called Anti-Social Computing: Bots, Lies, and the New Information Environment is co-hosted by the South Hub, West Hub, and Northeast Hub. It will be held on Thursday, March 9th, 2017 from Noon-1:15 PM EST. Panelists will explore how social media, online news, blogs, etc. – in conjunction with widespread access to the Internet from multiple devices – are creating a new information environment. In this environment, the norms of social interaction, conversation, public discourse, and news reporting are being rewritten. Trolls and bots can shape conversation, shift discourse, and build bridges among groups who might not otherwise connect. The panel will explore how fake news can spread and […]